At this time four years ago, I sat, stood, paced the living room near the television set, trying to focus on the photos and read the scrolling updates through seemingly endless tears... tears which return uncontrollably at the memory.
The Jawa Report has a caption contest with no winners today. It's fitting, because remembering what we felt, what we thought that day is a testament to who we are and what is important to us.
I'd just returned from a vacation and I was asleep. Sometime before 10 am (CDT), the phone rang. It was my sister in the UK. She answered my hello with "What the hell's going on there?" I said tentatively, "um... nothing I know of." She told me to turn on the television.
How long we talked, I don't remember. We were on the phone when the first photos of the south tower getting hit were shown. We were still connected when the Pentagon was hit, when the news of the crash of Flight 93 was aired, when the towers collapsed.
We correctly surmised that Flight 93 was an intentional crash (sis is a pilot and air traffic controller). That day, today, and for the rest of my life, the Americans who fought back on that plane are my biggest heroes.
We decided that the President was likely headed for Barksdale AFB. I found it somewhat disturbing that we so easily narrowed his possible destinations down to three, with our first choice being the one he used. It shouldn't be that easy to figure out.
I was home alone, my husband working out of town and my children grown and on their own. I wanted to talk to them. I told my sister we'd talk more later. I could not control the tears... how many of you know that many women express anger with tears as well as sadness?
My youngest was in school at W&M. She reported that many of her classmates were from the DC area and worried about parents who worked in or near the Pentagon. My oldest, four months out of the Army was talking about re-enlisting, but anxious because she hadn't been able to contact her husband who was still active duty.
He was in his car in a part of the country where cell phones didn't work, listening to tapes, and, for a short time, blissfully unaware of how his country had changed.
My son in Michigan was, like me, glued to a television set.
My husband and his co-workers were getting sketchy reports from family members like me calling them with the news.
What I felt was a need to be close to my family and an ever increasing anger that anyone would... could do such horrible things. It was five days before I felt fear. Five days of silence. We live under the approach path for the regional airport. The silence was deafening.
On Sunday, I heard aircraft, but not the ones I was used to hearing. Not the ones I now realized I liked hearing. These weren't commercial. These weren't Barksdale's B52s, which are a fairly common sight. Fighters in the sky above my house? Despite all the talk on TV, it took seeing T38s to make me realize that my country was preparing to go to war and to shatter the surreal bubble of denial I'd been in.
A forceful response was necessary. Flowers, memorials, waving the flag, and mourning the dead would not suffice. Symbolism would not suffice.
It was suddenly obvious from the beginning that this was an attack on the world, on Western Civilization, on progress, on modernization, on capitalism. On Freedom.
Naively, because of the demonstrations of caring, support, and solidarity I was seeing on TV, I thought the rest of the world realized this too. After all, hadn't innocent citizens of almost every country in the world died that day?
Wouldn't the world react in large just like I was reacting individually? Wouldn't sadness, anger, and fear turn to steely resolve to rid the planet of this cultural pus?
In the past four years, my naivete has melted somewhat. I'm still an optimist. I still think good will triumph over evil in the end. The fear is gone, the sadness, anger, and resolve remain.
